Miller-Woodcock Elephants #1

Scan000010132, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. During the season of 1951 with Kelly-Miller, D.R. approached my dad with an offer to frame an elephant act for him to book out independently, with an option to buy. We now know that this was an unrealistic arrangement since with the expense of transporting and feeding the stock plus cutting the proceeds two ways, little if anything was left toward repaying the initial loan. So three baby elephants were ordered thru Henry Trefflich and after their arrival into Central Park Zoo, my dad flew up to check them out and discovered that one had a crippled leg so he refused her and had the other two ("Fanny" and "Lydia") shipped to the show. By this time the act was already booked with Siebrand Shows for the following season and they were an elephant short so my dad managed to borrow "Anna May" whom he had trained two years previously, until a replacement could be found. The picture above shows "Lydia" in training the winter of 1951-52 with Russell Show "Margaret" standing in the door of the elephant barn in Hugo, Oklahoma. Some years later D.R. got into trouble with the US Government over Federal ticket taxes, etc. and the Authorities interrogated everyone involved with him financially. They asked my dad to show the paperwork involved in framing the Miller-Woodcock elephant act (around $30,000) and he explained that there was nothing in writing, the elephants showed up, he trained them, a truck showed up and they left. The Feds were incredulous. One asked "Is this the way Miller does all his business?'.